European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 14, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Diane Sawyer combines Brant and Beauty. The former "60 minutes " correspondent co hosts a new prime time news program. I Diane a total news package Sawyer by David Friedman new Day it s a paparazzi town los pigeons in new York they re everywhere travelling in locks leaving familiar droppings. In a Cit built on hype they ensure that notoriety is noted. Ii not a Welcome sight they Are a common one. Even so it s a bit surprising to see a Cluster of paparazzi on this particular july afternoon. This is because As Star is normally defined in los Angeles there is no Star expected at the Century Plaza hotel a place where Only last night photographers had flashed their bulbs at de Mcmahon Robert stack Jill Eikenberry Sandy Duncan and a score of similarly Pearly toothed to performers attending a party thrown by Abc. Yet these paparazzi Are Here awaiting a to Star who has never acted in a network series but who earns More Money and looks More glamorous than nearly All of the people who do. A woman who will Host a new to news program Abc s primetime live taking some considerable programming risks. A woman who once earned her living answering Ron Ziegler s Telephone. And suddenly she s Here. Accompanied by primetime co Host Sam Donaldson Diane Sawyer walks slowly toward the room where she and Donaldson will take questions irom to critics. Sawyer is wearing a Black skirt and Biack strapless Blouse topped by a school bus yellow jacket. In a word she looks fabulous. Even the paparazzi seem stunned for a moment then they go to work blocking Sawyer s Way. For the next 10 seconds she squints into flashbulbs and reluctantly smiles at strangers Barking just one More of Diane finally Donaldson upstaged in a Way he s never been by Bill Plante. Brushes one photographer aside and escorts his new partner into a nearby meeting room. Geez Diane Donaldson says have you made a movie no but Sawyer has made a move. One that Many consider to be the most significant move in network news since Abc lured Barbara Walters from Abc 13 years ago for a million Dollar salary. This is because Sawyer s move from lbs to Abc says less about Money than it does about the changing status of network news divisions. Last Winter after 11 years at lbs including four of them As the first woman reporter on 60 minutes. Sawyer 43, decided to leave. She would accept a modest taken in context that is raise of $500,000 for a total annual package estimated at $1.6 million to become co Host of a live prime time news program without a proven format that will compete against two of the most successful dramas in All of television la. Law and knots Landing. It is the kind of decision Only someone very foolish or very smart would make. And the smart Money is betting that Sawyer Falls in the latter Camp. After a Brilliant career at the Tiffany network Sawyer whose contract at lbs stipulated that she would replace Dan rather on the evening news looked at the future of broadcast journalism and decided it was spelled a by. On july 27,1973, Sawyer was in san Clemente Calif watching the news on television. The news was bad. Three years earlier she d been hired As a desk assistant in the White House press office. Now she was press Secretary Ziegler s most trusted aide. He had asked her to Monitor to coverage of the House judiciary committee Vole on whether to impeach president Nixon the poor president Sawyer cried out after that vote then she ran to Tell Ziegler. Thirteen Days later Nixon resigned in Washington then How Back to California Sawyer then 24, was among the loyalists on that piano. She would slay in san Cler Kienle four years helping Nixon write his memoirs. Sawyer s resume has other troubling entries. Not Only did she work in Public relations and Lor Richard Nixon she is also a former to weather girl at wkly to in Louisville. By and Beauty contest Winner 1963 Junior miss Linda Ellerbee has a name for people in to news with backgrounds like this. She Calls them All Sawyer wanted was a Chance to prove otherwise. She got it in 1978 when lbs news executive William Small who knew Sawyer in Louisville offered her a Job in his Washington Bureau. It was not a popular hire. Dan rather came up to me Sawyer says and said before you hear it from someone else. I want you to know i opposed your getting a Job Here. It was t personal. Ii was because of where you came from " Sawyer kept a Low profile at lbs doing inserts for stories reported by other network correspondents. Except for the occasional ear or lock of hair Sawyer said i was never on the air in the first year i worked but in 1979 Sawyer covered the nuclear Accident at three mile Island. And this time she did get on. Often. In 1980, Sawyer was promoted to correspondent covering the state department. Her reporting on the Iran hostage crisis made a fan of Charles Kuralt who lobbied lbs news president William Leonard to have Sawyer join Kuralt As co Host of lbs s morning program. In May of 1981, she did. Once there Sawyer solidified her reputation As an interviewer. Her guests found her Well prepared and willing to listen and Many ended up revealing More than they intended. And she would do the most famous interview to air on that program on the 10th anniversary of the watergate break in she interviewed Richard Nixon. Many were impressed with the Way Sawyer pressed Nixon on Why he had never said he was sorry. One of those viewers was Don Hewitt executive producer of 60 minutes. Two years later Sawyer became that show s first female correspondent. Sawyer did some 80 pieces there Over the next four years the great majority of them profiles. In just six years she d engineered a remarkable make Over once a Beauty Queen turned weather girl turned Nixon press aide she was now the second most watched woman reporter after Walters in All of television. Without being called a without having owned a major news Story. Even according to some detractors without working very hard. And it had happened so fast no one was really sure How it happened. What was Clear however was that Sawyer had become a major Media Star a woman written about in Newsweek new York Magazine to guide and ladies Home journal a process that reached its Pinnacle when Sawyer posed shoulders bared in a tight Black dress with an unmistakable come hither look for an adoring cover photo in vanity fair. Everything seemed perfect then a Guy at Abc named Roone Arledge got her on the phone. Sitting at an outdoor breakfast table at the Bel air hotel Sawyer smiles when a reporter joins her. She s ready to answer questions but Sawyer does t want to discuss her in cell status As the wife of director Mike Nichols other than to hint that she proposed to him you sense that Sawyer accepts her celebrity rather than exults in it leaving the so minutes olympic Loarn k Sawyer Calls it. Was not a sudden or decision rather she says it was More Tike a ripening. In the end Mike Nichols and i decided i had logo with the Chance to do something new " not just new. But different Prim time live will not As to minutes does rely on a rigid formal. Instead the show will adapt itself each week to that week s top news events. Live and in front of a studio audience. Sure. Abc s Roone Arledge was persuasive but these Are careers Sawyer says not courtship. And it s silly to think a decision like this is made Over the Blandishments of one lunch " it s vexing to Sawyer that she s olten accused of politicking her Way to the top. Yes. I be been taken to dinner by lbs president Larry Tisch and lbs founder and chairman Bill Paley she said but to assume that that s How i made my career at lbs is ridiculous. Believe me. Don Hewitt has dined with them far More often than i have. I m no Radical feminist but that charge is clearly she s similarly irked by charges that underneath her Southern Charm lies one of the most ambitious women in America. A reporter once quoted Henry Kissinger whom Sawyer dated for a while saying this about her but Kissinger later claimed he was misquoted. Still Sawyer seems anxious to respond. Would a woman with clawing ambition she asked give up four years of her career to work in san Clemelle for a Man with no future Sawyer who says she s never been a registered Republican is far More tolerant of those who wonder about that Nixon connection. In a Way i have violated one of my own principles she said. I Don t think there should be a careless thoughtless indiscriminate shuttling Back and Forth Between government and journalism or vice Sawyer does t see Nixon As a tragic figure at least not in the greek sense for that to be True Nixon would have to recognize his fatal flaw then act upon it he Nover nor does she feel betrayed by him. Mostly the watergate period was a rite of passage for to she says. It made me realize How irrelevant i am to the larger Sawyer is reluctant to even attempt a personal explanation of her Success something Oprah Winfrey did at great length but with considerably less clarity in a recent new York times sunday Magazine profile i m very calvinist about All Sawyer said. Not in the sense of some predestined elite. In the sense that i really do believe you get punished for believing that you be succeeded. And that it s very important to see Only the ground yet to be gained and never to gloat Over what you be already accomplished. To me it s always about the next show. Unlike Oprah Sawyer said i Don t think the universe has Ever noticed but television has. And it s probably True to say that Sawyer s Success says less about Sawyer than it does to. Without question there Are More tenacious reporters Andrea Mitchell for instance and More insightful interviewers Ted Koppel on the air even a few who Are just As Good looking Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. But it is Sawyer s great Good Fortune to be working in a medium that worships and no one better embodies the package of poise looks and competence a package news executives Are willing to pay millions for than Diane Sawyer. Monday August 14, 1989 the stars and stripes Page 17
